The Principles of Economics

March 2, 2007 11:38 AM

The Principles of Economics by the Standup Economist A short, funny video that riffs on Mankiw's 10 Principles of Economics. Check out the hilarious proof that trade can make everyone worse off!!! The standup economist is Yoram Bauman.
posted by storybored (14 comments total)

Two thumbs up.

Reminds me of when I was teaching a sophomore-level public speaking course, and one of my students decided to do a pro-cocaine speech. He read part of an article that said something like, "Many people turn to hard drugs in an attempt to relieve the pain caused by the problems they are experiencing, but the next morning the high has worn off and their problems are almost always still there."

Then he said: "Notice that the author said almost always. Isn't it worth doing drugs for the slight chance that you'll wake up and all your problems will have magically disappeared?"

He failed the course, but in the most entertaining manner I had ever seen.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:00 PM on March 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

This is great. I love the 'people respond to incentives' bit.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 12:03 PM on March 2, 2007

Why on earth did you fail the poor guy?
posted by mrnutty at 12:07 PM on March 2, 2007

That guy was pretty funny, but not quite as funny as the pissing-themselves-laughing audience made it sound.
posted by DU at 12:09 PM on March 2, 2007

Yeah, the audience was pretty cringe-making.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 12:12 PM on March 2, 2007

The line "macroeconomists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions" is great, but not original. I believe Paul Samuelson said it first.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 12:14 PM on March 2, 2007

I think the audience was laughing to show they understood.

This was still good, though.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:26 PM on March 2, 2007

Clearly, the audience had incentives in addition to humor for pissing themselves. I'm guessing freemarket UTIs.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:29 PM on March 2, 2007

Yoram is superfunny and cool. Glad to see he's getting some press. We were math majors together, but he was more popular around campus as the Condom Czar. I had no such chick-magnet title.
posted by gleuschk at 12:42 PM on March 2, 2007

I think the audience was laughing to show they understood.

It was at a an AAAS confrence.
posted by delmoi at 12:47 PM on March 2, 2007

That was enjoyable.
posted by Bugbread at 12:48 PM on March 2, 2007

Ha - Yoram was my freshman year RA!
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 1:26 PM on March 2, 2007

Why on earth did you fail the poor guy?

Unfortunately, it wasn't a class in "how to stand up and be funny with almost no preparation," it was more a class in "how to do good research and craft a well-organized speech." If you could get course credit just for being funny, my brother wouldn't be a drop-out, he'd have a Ph.D.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:41 PM on March 2, 2007

Aloysius Bear, yes it is attributed on Yoram's web site:

...the talk contains two unattributed quotes ("9 out of 5" is adapted from a line attributed to Paul Samuelson---although apparently he said it about Wall Street indices, not macroeconomists---and "wrong about things" is paraphrased from P.J. O'Rourke's Eat the Rich)
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:10 AM on March 3, 2007